Operation TREBUCHET (Earth-5875)
Operation TREBUCHET was a massive military response of the Unified Earth Government to the many civilian uprisings and disorders across the Outer Colonies that collectively became the Secession. Spanning ten years across multiple human systems, Operation TREBUCHET became the biggest offensive of the UNSC, involving all echelons of the UNSC Navy and the UNSC Marine Corps in an attempt to bring an end to the many Insurrectionist cells that resisted the authority of the UEG in the Outer Colonies. Starting in 2513 with a massive armed uprising by the Sovereign Colonies in the Eridanus system, TREBUCHET was temporarily suspended in February 2525 with the apperance of the Covenant and the outbreak of the First Contact War. Prelude In June 2494, the UNSC Marine Corps defector Robert Watts started a heavily-armed insurgent movement on Eridanus II, deposing the Republic of Eridanus II and establishing their own government. With weapons secretly provided to them by defectors from the CAA, Watts and his soldiers started a series of terrorist attacks, political assassinations and kidnapings across the planet, which impacted the shipping industry of the planet. The rebels were also able to amass a fleet of their own from vessels stolen from the CMB. Whatever remained of the Republic pledged help for the UNSC in December of the same year. In UNSC only responded in January 2496, lauching Operation CHARLEMAGNE to retake the planet and quell the Sovereign Colonies, sending a battle group to engage the insurgent ships. The UNSC was able to break the hold of Watts in the planet and splinter the many groups that allied with him by killing their leaders. Weeks later, the UNSC regained control of the planet, only missing four destroyers. Watts was able to survive, and he rallied what remained of his faction to form the Sovereign Colonies, which would continue to fight against the UNSC, the CAA, and the CMB across the Outer Colonies. Operation ''Iliad'' fighting against UNSC forces.]] The United Rebel Front was eventually able to regain strength and thus attempted to retake Eridanus II once again. Watts' plan was to use the planet as a base for his operations and draw the CAA into a guerilla war to end their power and resources. In 2513, infighting broke out in the Eridanus system, and Watts formed his own Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces (SCAF), but the UNSC anticipated this move and sent an entire fleet of destroyers, frigates, cruisers and carriers to take down the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. The resulting battle saw the UNSC fighting against hundreds of stolen freighters, shuttles and warships used by the insurgents; the UNSC emerged victorious and completely dismantled the SCAF. A ground campaign on Eridanus II simultaneously occured under a Marine expeditionary group commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Pablo Aboim. During the battle, the Marines failed to capture Watts in Elysium, where a man threatened to kill himself and his own daughter with a grenade. Once Aboim noticed he was bluffing, a sniper shot the rebel, but he pulled the pin of the grenade out in reflex, which killed his family and heavily wounded Aboim, who was later demoted. The Sovereign Colonies eventually established one stronghold in the planet, while the UNSC decimated all of its forces. Watts had his surviving forces withdraw from the planet, fleeing into slipspace. The remnants of the SCAF regrouped into Eridanus Secundus, the largest asteroid belt in the Eridanus system. While they rebuilt their strength following the major loss, they started to resort to piracy in the system. Spreading By 2524, TREBUCHET led to one million civilian casualties. Watts was able to create more installations on planets across multiple human systems, making the remnants of the Sovereign Colonies a problem bigger than what the UNSC expected. Meanwhile, several other factions, such as the United Liberation Front, were created on other colonies, leading to several engagements which saw the death of numerous civilians that provoked growing resentment towards the UNSC and the UEG. As a part of TREBUCHET, the supersoldiers of the classified ORION Project were dispatched on multiple missions against Insurrectionist; one ORION, Avery Johnson, was almost able to assassinate Watts as a part of Operation KALEIDOSCOPE. A large Marine battalion was placed in Tribute in 2524 with the support of many AV-14 Hornets, where the Marines performed counter-terrorism activities in the planet's capital, Casbah. Staff Sergeants Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne were both involved in the conflict, leading to "disastrous" results in mid June, with Byrne's entire team killed in a terrorist attack in a restaurant in Casbah, which also killed thirty-eight civilians and four insurgents. Later the same year, the CAA tried raiding an Insurrectionist base on Eridanus II. The same day, a nightclub favored by CAA personnel after their duty was attacked by Insurrectionist bombers, which killed dozens of civilians, the CAA pilot Allison Stark, and putting Eric Santiago into a coma. Gage Yevgenny and Felicia Sanderson were two of the only survivors. The operation was put into an abrupt holdover once the First Contact War started with the disastrous first contact with the Covenant on Shanxi. Aftermath and legacy While Insurrectionist activity continued to exist, it was much smaller and reduced in capacity thanks to the success of TREBUCHET and the emergence of the genocidal Covenant hegemony, which destroyed most of the Outer Colonies, glassing the planets and killing all humans they found, with no distinction between civilians and even children. Many insurgent cells, seeing that the UNSC offered protection against the Covenant, chose to either submit to the UNSC's control or hide from the Covenant. Other factions sought to aid the UNSC in protecting their respective homeworlds from the Covenant. By 2553, Operation TREBUCHET had been suspended for almost thirty years, although some groups, such as the Venezian Militia, believed that the Office of Naval Intelligence were still secretly willing to carry it out against the Insurrectionists, but did not duo to the near total annihilation of the First Contact War. The militia even captured the ''CCS''-class battlecruiser Pious Inquisitor to defend Venezia from any UNSC attack on the colony. Category:Earth-5875 Category:Operations of Earth-5875 Category:Secession (Earth-5875) Category:Events of Earth-5875 Category:Events Category:Created by Draft227